Polity Agent

‘It did,’ the AI replied. ‘Only two dreadnoughts remained by the segment, but the Heliotrope did not fall within range of their weapons, even if they had chosen to use them.’

A few facts came together in Cormac’s mind, and he turned to Blegg. ‘She sent us the solution to the Legate’s chameleonware so we would concentrate on that ship, thus giving her the opportunity to escape.’

‘Outstanding reasoning,’ said Blegg.

‘Outstanding sarcasm,’ Cormac replied. ‘But we should have known.’

‘The information came via the AI net,’ Blegg replied. ‘An HK program tracked it only as far as one of the Cassius stations, from where it was broadcast to us. No real way of knowing if she sent it. Do you want to go back?’

Orlandine was a haiman, who had been promoted to become overseer of a project this size, a murderer, and one quite likely to have had contact with this Legate. Yet she had betrayed the Legate to them, and there had been only one node signature detected—the one aboard the Legate’s ship—hadn’t there? Cormac felt a momentary disquiet, remembering how long it had taken to clean up that signature. Maybe as long as it took a second node to follow through its program with a host and therefore cease to be detectable as a node? This woman could be someone even more dangerous than Skellor. But an AI had once told Cormac that psychos wielding weapons, however dangerous, should not be your prime target: you should always go after the arms trade that supplied them.

‘Continue the pursuit,’ he directed.

* * * *

Settled in a storage area and perpetually updated by Jack, Arach wondered if he had made a big mistake. Space battles, he felt, were okay if there was some chance that enemy ships might need to be boarded, but there had been no need of that. Long pursuits through space were also okay, so long as there might then ensue a planetfall and some subsequent ground-based conflict. But was that likely? For a long time Arach had been shutting himself down for periods that extended over decades. Signing on to Celedon, the station drawing the line of Polity, he had hoped to find some action there. No such luck. This hooking up with a Polity agent known to often get involved in violent conflicts was the drone’s last desperate gamble at relieving boredom. If this did not work, then maybe permanent shutdown? Or perhaps Arach should abandon the Polity altogether and see if he could find some action beyond the line? He would wait and see. In darkness he drew power to charge up his energy reserves, counted and recounted his esoteric collection of missiles, and ran perpetual diagnostic checks on his weapons systems. He would see.

* * * *

In U-space the ship repaired itself and within two weeks, ship time, regained optimum function. Some debris still lay around inside it — pieces of rail-gun missiles and burnt-out components—but, given time, the ship’s mycelium would take these apart and incorporate them. The Legate watched nearby disturbances in the continuum, caused by the pursuing warships, and now began to work on plans for evading them. They knew the solution to this vessel’s chameleonware, thanks to Orlandine, so time to do something about that. The Legate ran programs to completely change how that ‘ware operated, created back-up programs for further changes, then, finally ready, it surfaced its ship back into the real.

Seven ships materialized a mere 100,000 miles away in interstellar space: two dreadnoughts and five old-style attack ships. The Legate instantly onlined the new program and accelerated for some distance under conventional drive, before dropping back into underspace, the ‘ware distorting its U-signature too, and concealing the ship in underspace. The Legate travelled for five days in that continuum, and still detected some disturbance in the vicinity, which meant the ships could still detect it, or had chosen a close course by chance. Again into the real.

This time the two dreadnoughts were gone and only three of the attack ships remained. The Legate jumped again, then again before changing the ‘ware program for a second time. Some kind of feedback through the program created ghost distortions during the transition from one continuum to another, but this time no pursuers remained. As a precaution the Legate changed the program yet again, and made three more random jumps, before setting a course of jumps for home. Still some ghosting in the system, but considering how close it had come to destruction, the Legate could live with that.

* * * *